COASTALVISION: Heavily-saturated Tropicália

COASTALVISION: Heavily-saturated Tropicália is an award-winning first artist's monograph from ambitious publisher Jordan, Jordan Éditions. The book features the artistic journey of the outsider artist, Kendra Ahimsa aka Ardneks, from 2011 to today. His journey is presented through a series of interviews between Ardneks and radio announcers from around the globe, blending reality, fantasy and candid nostalgia in a similar fashion to the artist's work.

Collage was the main feature of Ardneks’ early works – photography, stills and drawings. By gaining more trust and traction with the local music scene he also gained more confidence in experimenting and exploring his own unique style, with a move to more illustration rather than collage, riddled with French new wave cinema references, a mash of genres and lyrics that can be very niche, using words and jargon in different languages from Japanese to Javanese.

Another important detail in Ardneks’ works is how he engages with religious deities and symbols. His’ cross-cultural references were inspired and perhaps enabled by being brought up in an open-minded family that allowed him to explore and understand Islam (including Sufism), Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism (hence his surname, Ahimsa) – uncommon in families throughout Indonesia. Although it is a country with the largest Muslim population, Indonesia is also a vast archipelago with huge cultural and ethnic diversity, a dynamic that Ardneks uniquely captures. 

Jordan, jordan Éditions, 360pp, 18cm x 26cm, illustrated paperback, 2024